


i did not suffer from love

by garbagefeather



Category: Fire Emblem Series, Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Abduction, Accidental Child Acquisition, Canon-Typical Violence, Emotional Repression, Eventual Happy Ending, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, M/M, Medical Experimentation, Moderately Severe Angst, Pining, Post-Timeskip, Rescue Missions, apologies to all the characters felix will inevitably be mean to in his internal narration, i still love you and felix probably doesn't hate you as much as he thinks, i'd estimate this to reach 20kish, medium burn because i can't write longfic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-24
Updated: 2020-01-24
Packaged: 2021-02-25 07:47:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,756
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22392562
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/garbagefeather/pseuds/garbagefeather
Summary: Five years ago, Sylvain was abducted by Imperial forces, vanishing without a trace. Then, in the present, Felix meets a mysterious teenage boy on the battlefield: fighting for the Empire, wielding the Lance of Ruin, and with a suspicious resemblance to Sylvain. He is the only lead in all this time: and so Felix captures him and embarks on a solo rescue mission (plus one begrudgingly helpful brat), defying orders for one last, desperate bid to save the man he loves.(or: accidental baby acquisition, except the baby is like thirteen and tried to stab you when you met. also, it's slightly darkfic)
Relationships: Felix Hugo Fraldarius/Sylvain Jose Gautier
Comments: 4
Kudos: 39





	1. prologue

**Author's Note:**

> _i did not suffer from love,  
>  i suffered with it.  
> we wore the same uniform.  
> we were both in the same barracks,  
> we fought beside each other on the front line.  
> your name was our war cry._  
> \- Salma Deera, "it was you"

When Sylvain joined the Black Eagles, Felix went with him. Of course he did. "Anything to get away from the boar," he'd muttered, and no one had called him on it, and the remaining part of him that wasn't pure frustration and barely-suppressed rage was grateful for it.

This means that Felix is the only witness when things fall apart.

Edelgard unmasks. The professor levels their sword against the Archbishop. Rhea transforms into a monstrous thing, scales and fangs and unhinged fury, more of a beast than Dimitri ever could be. Sylvain -

Sylvain throws himself after them, the Lance of Ruin pulsing and twitching in his hand, and Felix hisses _"Idiot,"_ and throws himself after _him_ , because how can he not, when Sylvain is the only thing he has ever loved that has not been dug up and desecrated by time? But his ribs twang and he stumbles to his knees - the arrow he took in the ribs and didn't pull out so he wouldn't bleed out down here. Right. Right.

Sylvain almost gets her, too, because his stupid flighty skirt-chaser act has never entailed not bending his full skill toward the battlefield, but then Edelgard shouts out "Hubert!" and he appears by her side, a summoned thing, a chained-and-leashed demon pale and smirking and worse than Dedue -

Not everyone believes Felix, when he tells them how this next bit goes. But Felix is Felix, and he has never been capable of forgetting what he sees.

The Lance arcs toward her neck. Hubert's hand extends. Sylvain's honey-brown eyes widen, wide, so wide it could almost be comical, that fake grin wiped away at last. Sickly yellow sparks and crackles at Hubert's fingertips before it explodes.

Felix sees it in slow motion every time. Sylvain, taking a bolt of Thoron at point-blank range to the side. Toppling to the ground, Lance spinning out, face obscured by that thrice-damned orange mop. Hubert, picking up the Lance and throwing Sylvain's limp form over his shoulder. Felix, lurching forward, arm outstretched, on the verge of crying out something he knows he'll regret.

The blinding white flicker-light as Hubert warps himself, and the Black Eagles, and Sylvain away one-by-one to Goddess-knows-where, far out of Felix's reach.

Felix is left alone with Rhea, her howl shaking the foundations of the monastery and causing dust to shower from the ceiling.

This is the last time any of them see Sylvain.

Felix is left alone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OKAY, so, i *hope* to finish this fic but i honestly don't know if i will be able to, but i REALLY wanted to post it anyway despite my policy of only posting fics once i've finished them. so, i'm posting it on my alt account so that i won't be tortured with guilt every time i get a notification.
> 
> Mind the tags - i don't thiiink any of the things i warned for will end up being explicit, but they will be discussed and the emotional aftermath will be explored (because trauma recovery fics are, always and forever, my jam). I will also include more specific warnings at the start of chapters that deal with heavier themes.
> 
> See you whenever I finish the next chapter - hopefully not too long, but the next semester of college has started, so we'll see.
> 
> (oh, also: this route starts crimson flower but then byleth fucks off to join dimitri after the timeskip bc Reasons. which is a kind of clumsy setup but the only way i could get a few things to work)


	2. 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (no particular warnings for this chapter except canon-typical violence and felix-typical rudeness)
> 
> Also, Byleth is nonbinary in this fic, but they won't be in it very much so I didn't tag them.

Felix's heart leaps into his throat when he sees it, five long years into the war.

A shock of orange hair across the battlefield, unmistakable as anything, the pulsating glow of the Lance of Ruin a signal flare beside it. He thinks _Sylvain_ , and then _that's impossible_ , and then he does not think anything at all because he is hacking and blasting his way through enemy soldiers with single-minded focus toward it.

His pulse kicks like a boot against his ribcage. He stabs a Thoron through a footsoldier's eye. There's blood in his hair and a name on his tongue and -

He has not yet reached the man-who-cannot-be-Sylvain when he realizes that something is very, very wrong. The hideous bone tip thrusts through the carnage. The soldier whose chest it's pierced through: his armor is Kingdom blue.

 _No_ Felix thinks almost as soon as _I'll kill him_ because practicality and fury occupy very similar places in his mind. He surges forward, Crest of Fraldarius scorching a shivering white around him, all _(boarlike)_ brute strength and piercing disbelief, and then he breaks through to the space the Lance has cleared and whirls on the balls of his feet to face the man-who-cannot-be-Sylvain:

It is not a man. It is not Sylvain.

It is a child, a boy, with Sylvain's red hair and Sylvain's Hero's Relic and Sylvain's Crest of Gautier a savage beacon written in the air - but with discordant blue eyes and a feral joy on his face that Sylvain has never once worn.

Felix's brain can't comprehend what he's seeing. Can't quite put the puzzle pieces of the situation together. _Where's Sylvain,_ his thoughts supply, _someone must have done something to him,_ and then the boy shouts a laugh, twirls the Lance in his grip and grins at Felix. There is blood on his teeth.

"Another Crest-bearer!" he hoots. "Come on, show me what you've got," and he starts a charge.

This, at least, is a dance that Felix knows.

The boy is cocky. And it's not entirely unwarranted: he's sure on his feet, quick in reaction time, inventive in his movements. But he's untested, and it shows. He relies too much on his Crest to back up his blows. He's reckless, leaving himself open too often in a way that (doesn't, cannot) remind Felix of Sylvain. He isn't taking any of this seriously: flash over substance, handling the Lance like a kid with a new toy, and it pisses Felix off immensely.

For awhile they go parry-for-parry, blow-for-blow as Felix sounds out his opponent. Then he makes a tactical decision, quick as an incision: a feint, and when the kid thrusts the Lance with all his strength Felix activates his Crest one last time _(if the kid wants a lightshow, Felix can give him a lightshow)_ and knocks the Lance out of his hands in one powerful downswing of his blade.

The Lance spins across the ground (it doesn't clatter - not like it did five years ago) as the kid backs away, panting, eyes comically wide. Right then - as they stare each other down on the battlefield - the shout goes up for the Imperial army to retreat.

The kid's eyes flicker back. Forward. To the Lance. Back to the hills where he should be running. Then his jaw sets and he dives for the Lance, right into striking range of Felix's sword.

Felix grits his teeth. This kid. Is _damn_ lucky. That Felix wasn't planning on killing him.

He hits the kid, hard, with the pommel of his sword in the back of the head, watches the light faze out from his uncannily pale eyes, and the boy slumps over, unconscious.

*

Felix trudges stubbornly back across the deserted battlefield to where his former classmates are regrouping, carrying the kid like a sack of potatos, sword in its hilt and Lance of Ruin in his offhand. He glares, eyes like chips of flint, daring anyone to point out his captive.

(Sylvain would break the tension immediately with an off-color joke that somehow still struck at the heart of the matter, but it's _Sylvain's_ whole fault that Felix is even in this situation anyway.)

"Uh..." Ingrid starts, and the expression Felix sends her way could be, uncharitably, referred to as a snarl.

Annette, of course, blusters right past his walls. "Felix!" she gasps. "Is that - is that the Lance? The - the Destroyer Lance, or whatever it's called?"

How someone with a grip of math far over his head can forget the name of something so simple is beyond him, but then again, _her_ house's Hero's Relic is just called _Crusher_ , so maybe the confusion is understandable. "Lance of Ruin," he corrects stiffly.

"I can see that, but more importantly, Felix, did you _abduct_ someone?!" she says, voice pitching so high he winces.

"No," Felix says, and lets the kid drop to the ground, also like a sack of potatoes. "He was an enemy combatant. This is a prisoner of war."

"The Imperial army is using child soldiers?" Ingrid cuts in, frowning. Her attention is nominally on the boy on the ground, though she keeps cutting wary glances at the Lance in Felix's hand, not daring to broach the subject. She doesn't dare to broach the subject of Sylvain much at all, these days. Serves her right.

"I don't know, or care, what he is," Felix grits out. "But he was using this." He shakes the weapon in his grip. The bone spurs near the tip twitch spasmodically. Felix refuses with great prejudice the urge to drop it in disgust.

"Shouldn't that have turned him into a Demonic Beast?" Ashe asks from where he's dismounting his horse, apparently deciding that he also needs to be in on this conversation.

"No," says Felix. He spits out the next words like spitting out teeth. "He was using the Crest of Gautier."

"That's - " Alarm flashes in Ingrid's eyes.

"Impossible," Annette finishes.

"Believe whatever you want. I know what I saw."

"Is he..." Ingrid starts, and Felix can see in her blue eyes the wheels turning, the conclusions - because there are very few possible conclusions - she is making.

"Don't know," he snaps before he is subjected to her voicing any of them, and then, vindicating himself retroactively, "That's what the damn kid is for." Honestly he does not know exactly what was going through his mind when he knocked the boy out and lugged him all the way across the bloody battlefield. Possibly nothing at all.

(That did not used to happen often, Felix not knowing what he was thinking, or at least he does not believe it did, but when so much of your brain is a minefield it becomes an art, navigating blank spaces.)

Then Mercedes starts to approach them, concern in her eyes and hands already beginning to glow with healing magic, but Felix is mercifully saved from having to bodily put himself between Mercedes and an injured child by the arrival of the professor, the boar lumbering behind.

Ingrid's gaze buzzes at the back of his neck like a hornet.

"Prisoner," Felix says, jerking his chin toward the kid. "Had the Lance. And a Crest."

(Those might be the most civil three almost-sentences Felix has said to Professor Byleth since they sauntered in five-fucking-years too late, with as little idea as Felix of where Sylvain was now.)

Byleth's cool, inhuman eyes flick across the situation. Assessing. Always assessing. Then they say, "That was prudent. We'll need to hear what he has to say."

"Too young to be fighting in a war like this," Mercedes says ruefully, now fully caught up to them and glaring daggers at Felix, as if he should have just nicely asked the kid to please come for a chat behind enemy lines to explain what the fuck the story was with his existence.

Dimitri, splattered in blood, says nothing.

Felix, before Mercedes can get any ideas, picks the kid back up to haul him back to camp.

He doesn't regret this, but by the time it's over he _(wants someone to)_ thinks someone is going to.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter count is an estimate.


End file.
